fore the blooming widow. The
ground was duly stepped, and the goal fixed, whilst my antagonist, all
animation and spirits, was pouring his liquid nonsense into the lady's
ear. I took care that, in about the middle of the distance, our
race-ground should pass over where some rushes were growing. Now
Riprapton had a most uncommon speed in this manner of progressing. He
would, with his leg of flesh, take three tremendous hops, and then step
down with his leg of wood one, and then three live hops again, and one
dead step, the step being a kind of respite from the fatigue of the
hops.

All the preliminaries being arranged, off we started, I taking, of
course, my twenty-five yards in advance. The exhibition and the gait
were so singular, that Mrs Causand could scarcely stand for
laughter, whilst the boys shouted, "Go it, Ralph!"--"Well done,
peg!"--"Dot-and-go-one will beat him."

In the midst of these exhilarating cries, what I had calculated upon
happened. Rip, before we had gone half the distance, was close behind
me; but lo! after three of his gigantic hops, that seemed to be
performed with at least one seven-leagued boot turned into a slipper, he
came down heavily upon his step with his wood among the rushes. The
stiff clay there being full of moisture and unsound, he plunged up to
his hip nearly, in the adhesive soil, and there he remained, as much a
fixture, and equally astonished, as Lot's wife. First of all, taking
care to go the distance, and thus win the wager, we, all frantic with
laughter, gathered round the man thus firmly attached to his mother
earth. Whilst the tears ran down Mrs Causand's cheeks, and proved that
her radiant colour was quite natural, she endeavoured to assume an air
of the deepest commiseration, which was interrupted, every moment, by
involuntary bursts of laughter. For himself, no wretch in the pillory
ever wore a more lugubrious aspect, and his sallow visage turned first
to one, and then to another, with a look so ridiculously imploring that
it was irresistible.

"I am sorry, very sorry," said the lady, "to see you look so pale--I may
say, so livid--but poor man, it is but natural, seeing already that you
have _one foot in the grave_."

The mender of pens groaned in the spirit.

"I say," said the school-boy wag of the party, applying an old Joe
Miller to the occasion, "why is Mr Riprapton like pens, ink, and
paper?"

"Because he is stationary," vociferated five eager voices